I was definitely enjoying the chance to sleep in this morning. I kind of drifted out of sleep around 7:50 in the morning. I was savoring the chance to lay there in bed with nothing to do, and gradually I noticed that there was an unusual amount of noise coming from people outside. Apparently today was a cleaning day, and I had ten minutes to get out there and help.<\/p>\n
A couple of strategies went through my mind, including just laying there and pretending I wasn’t home. The only bad thing about that would be that I would have to hide for a while afterwards, too. In the end I just got up, threw on some work clothes and went outside to help.<\/p>\n
I worked outside for about an hour, raking the occasional leaf, and then checked my name off the list and went inside. I spent the morning cleaning house and then called my folks and talked with them for a while. It sounds like their kitchen is taking much longer than they expected. It must be frustrating for them. <\/p>\n
Kuniko got off work early, so she came to visit around 3 o’clock. We went over to Ito Yokado and picked up some groceries, and I got a fresh papaya to send back with her to her parents. They’ve sent me stuff lately, so I wanted to send something back. <\/p>\n
Back home I cooked up some chicken breasts, sauteed in olive oil with lots of Italian spices. I also sauteed up some mushrooms, and Kuniko made up a big salad for us to share. For dessert we had cream puffs that Kuniko had brought as a present. <\/p>\n
Throughout the visit Kuniko and I reflected on being together for just about a year now. The time really flies – we went on my website and looked up our first date. The changes in my life are well-documented on these pages, but Kuniko also has had a big year. She became a full time English teacher, she moved to Osaka, she got engaged to a foreign guy, she went to Australia, she passed the top level of the STEP test. What will next year be like?<\/p>\n
Kuniko wanted to get back to her parents’ place to stay there, and it seemed like a good plan since I have to get up early tomorrow morning to do the STEP interviews at Takasago Minami. It’s getting pretty cold outside, so I made a couple of big cups of cocoa, spiked with Kahlua, and then we hit the road. <\/p>\n
I saw Kuniko off at the Tsuchiyama station, and I just got home. I’m off to bed soon – it was a good day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was definitely enjoying the chance to sleep in this morning. I kind of drifted out of sleep around 7:50 in the morning. I was savoring the chance to lay there in bed with nothing to do, and gradually I noticed that there was an unusual amount of noise coming from people outside. Apparently today […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pOpl7-8H","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}